450 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



ten or twelve years, a fact which sufficiently evidences the com- 

 parative infrequency of their visits. 



RED-THROATED DIVEE. 



Golymbus septentrionalis, L. 



The Red-throated Diver is a regular spring visitant to More- 

 cambe Bay and the Solway Firth. It does not frequent our 

 estuaries numerously at any time, but a few individuals are con- 

 stantly to be met with in the waters of the Solway from Silloth 

 to Gretna between the end of March and the last days of May. 

 These generally assume full plumage before their departure, but 

 an adult which Mr. Mason shot in October 1890, off the point 

 of Rockliffe marsh, was really as handsome as any spring-killed 

 bird. This Diver generally appears in our estuaries in 

 November, when, as the adults are often in moult and unable to 

 fly, they sometimes perish in heavy gales. Such had been the fate, 

 no doubt, of an individual which I found washed ashore near 

 Silloth, and of another adult, retaining a few red feathers, which 

 Mr. Williams showed me in the flesh in November 1888. It 

 had just been washed up on the west side of Walney Island. 

 Some birds occasionally winter with us, but this is the excep- 

 tion, and, as already remarked, the larger proportion are spring 

 visitants. Individuals have occasionally been observed at mid- 

 summer. In July 1886 a small but full-dressed male Red- 

 throated Diver was found dead by a platelayer near Gretna, 

 having struck the wires full upon the lower neck. The presence 

 of this Diver on our inland waters is unusual at any season, but 

 odd birds do in point of fact make their appearance on Bassen- 

 thwaite, Windermere, and the other lakes of this area at tolerably 

 frequent intervals. Mr. H. E. Rawson lately informed me that 

 a Red-throated Diver was killed on Windermere in January 

 1892, and taken to him for identification. Even such a limited 

 extent of water as Whin's Pond, Edenhall, has been known to 

 serve as a temporary resting-place for this Diver. A bird of 

 this species was shot in the locality just indicated in April 

 1840, the poor thing having probably alighted with a view to 

 fishing in the lake, whilst migrating across country to the east 



